Multipurpose Coffee Grounds

Get more from your coffee grounds then just a great drink.

May 2009 Web
By Stephanie Nelson 
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Every day, people enjoy roughly 1.4 billion cups of coffee. That’s a lot of coffee. More importantly, all those grounds add up in landfills across the world. But coffee grounds offer more then just a fantastic and addictive drink; use the grounds around your home, garden and even as a beauty product.

Here are a few tips for using your old coffee grounds. (A few of these tips can also be applied to tea bags and loose-leaf tea, noted with “T.”)

Home:

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• The coarse texture of coffee grounds is perfect for scrubbing difficult-to-clean dishes. Pack the grounds into a square sized cloth, gather the cloth’s ends and secure with a rubber band. (T)

• After chopping garlic or other fragrant foods, rub grounds on your hands to get rid of the odor.

• Grounds can repel refrigerator odors. Use old nylons or an old sock as a small satchel filled with grounds and keep in your refrigerator or freezer.

• Diluted coffee grounds act as a natural flea rinse.

Garden:

• When garden pests dine in your garden, add coffee grounds to keep them away from beloved plants.

• Coffee grounds release nitrogen into the soil and act like a fertilizer.

• Add grounds to your compost pile to restore the nitrogen level. (T)  

• Also, worms eat coffee grounds and help your compost by moving the pile around.

Beauty:

• Coffee grounds act as a natural exfoliate. Add an egg white with ¼ cup of grounds for a facial mask.

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